by Len Marshall
One of my earliest and most vivid memories was the evening Dad came home with a special surprise for me. I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old because we still lived in Brampton, and my sister, Paula, was only a baby.
I was somewhat familiar with Dad’s shift-work routine, so whenever he came home and I was still awake, it was an exciting moment. On this particular afternoon, Dad came in the front door with something behind his back.
After a few failed guesses, he finally revealed to me his spontaneously-timed gift – a big blue plastic CBC toy van, just like the ones I’d seen parked at the Jarvis Street studios! It had big black wheels and a real sliding side panel door.
Both sides and the back of the van were emblazed with the classic “exploding pizza” CBC logo – large on the sides and smaller to fit on the door of the back. It was perfect!
I played with that CBC van so much that the side panel door kept popping off and the wheels wobbled.
It wasn’t until much later in my life, when something triggered my memory of that toy van, that I realized that there was no possible way a local toy store would have had such a van. Dad had to have looked for a plain blue plastic van on which to apply CBC logo stickers from the studio’s extra supply.
And at that moment, as a grown man, that blue plastic toy CBC van became even more precious to me.